medical student stories Archives - Page 5 of 13

Angel of Healing

J. Alan Gambril November 19, 2021 8 Comments

A small wooden figure watches over my office. Four inches tall, hand-carved, neatly painted wood—an angel figurine with golden hair, majestic wings and a simple pure-white gown. Throughout my day seeing patients as an internal medicine and pediatrics resident, this angel watches over me—a constant reminder.

Two years ago, as a fourth-year medical student, I was on my internal medicine “acting internship” on the general internal medicine floor. This service was known for great teaching and complex cases—and notorious for emotionally heavy experiences.

Red Ship

Livja Koka November 16, 2021 7 Comments

Editor’s Note: As New Voices’ first editor, I am thrilled to launch Pulse’s newest feature with this story by Livja Koka, depicting, among other things, the difficult choices that parents make in hopes of giving their children a better future. This story, we hope, is only the first of many accounts by writers whose voices and experiences have often gone unseen and unheard.

After the Fall

Victoria Dukharan November 5, 2021 9 Comments

It is a chilly January night, a week after New Year’s and a few days after my twenty-fourth birthday. I’m halfway through my third year of medical school and have just started my clerkship on the hospital’s trauma unit.

I’ve been dreading this experience; I’m on twenty-four-hour call, and my heart sinks every time the pager goes off.

Dear Medical Student

Jessica C. Stuart October 29, 2021 12 Comments

Dear Medical Student,

I remember what it was like.

I remember what it was like the week before your clerkships begin, when you spend thirty minutes writing an email to the resident about how you’re excited to work with them, about how you’ve done cardiac stem-cell research and are interested in pursuing cardiology, and what can you do in advance, and oh, where should you meet the team on Monday morning? And they respond, “Great see you Monday 7 – Jack.”

Mind Boggling

Nick Safian June 25, 2021 11 Comments

“Eleven years ago, I wasn’t as old as I am now—which is a funny thing!” Virginia Mitchell tells me.

She’s dressed as if she picked her clothes using yellow Benjamin Moore paint samples: bright canary shirt, mustard pants, daffodil leather shoes. Last week’s theme was purple, topped off with a violet scarf; another time it was green, accented with a chartreuse ascot.

Meatballs and Hot Pink Scrubs

Rachel Dokko February 19, 2021 11 Comments

As a third-year medical student, I did a month-long psychiatry rotation in a large urban psychiatric hospital. I’ll never forget my first patients there: Christian Mitchell and Sabrina Smith.

Christian, only in his thirties, looked about sixty. He had the coarse, bushy beard of a mountain recluse, and his hair was similarly overgrown, with bits of unidentifiable debris tangled within.

El Jugo Me Hizo Daño

C.A. Rivera February 5, 2021 15 Comments

February 2010:

I toss and turn in bed, trying to fall back asleep; I have only a small cushion of time between getting up and heading to the hospital. I’m a third-year medical student doing my medicine subinternship. I have the choice of going to work or staying in bed a little longer.

On the other side of town, Ms. Garcia doesn’t have much choice about heading to the hospital: She’s bleeding from her nose and rectum. Standing in a puddle of blood, she calls 911.

Gunshot

Julie Howard November 13, 2020 10 Comments

Detroit, January 1997

In a haze of sleeplessness, I open the door to the general-surgery call room (aka “the Garage”) just after midnight. I’m one of two third-year medical students on this call team, and if I arrive first, I might be able to avoid the bunks with the most creased sheets and the pillows with head indentations still on them. The entire general-surgery team sleeps in this one room, with its messy bunks for eight and its odor of stale bodies. That is, we sleep during free moments, in rare fits, interrupted by pagers beeping and the door opening with a flash of light and closing with a loud click.

Climbing to an upper bunk, I get beeped: Code 1.

“Fuck, another gunshot victim,”

Miracle Worker

Austin Triana November 6, 2020 5 Comments

“There’s a transplant happening today,” said Sophie Lee, a resident, glancing at her pager.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I was a second-year medical student doing a clerkship on the hepatobiliary surgery service (specializing in the liver and bile ducts).

I felt a pang of disappointment: Now I couldn’t go home until after dinner. But there was no use complaining. I followed Sophie to see the transplant recipient, Mr. Franklin.

Finding a Common Chord

Jimmy Chen September 11, 2020 14 Comments

“I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.” — Maya Angelou

Before starting my dive into medicine, almost four years ago, I was an avid violinist, pianist, disc golfer and novice chef. Each of these activities felt comfortable and familiar–like “home.” But when I began medical school, I somewhat wistfully set them aside to focus on becoming a doctor.

Troubleshooter

Patrick Sammons August 21, 2020 9 Comments

As a third-year medical student midway through a family-medicine rotation, I’m supervised by a family physician in several free clinics in our large city.

On Fridays, we run a clinic for torture victims who’ve left their home countries to seek asylum in the US. I’ve been following a new patient, Julian, an African refugee.

Julian is a small, thin man in his early thirties. His large eyes, shy smile and soft voice belie the determination and resilience evident in his story.

Extracurriculars

Danielle Ellis June 17, 2020 15 Comments

If harsh words fall, but no patient is around to hear them, do they make a sound?

This particular night on my trauma-surgery rotation as a fourth-year medical student, the question weighs heavily as a page alerts the team that a patient with multiple gunshot wounds will arrive in ten minutes.

Everyone’s kind of excited. Anxious, too. Jittery.

1:00 am. Down in the ED, the main actors stand masked, gowned and ready to go. ED Cowboy stands at the head of the bed, Surgery Senior stands to the side. Alongside them, the throngs of people without obvious purpose who always seem to show up just in time for the evening’s episode of “drama in the trauma bay.” Everyone’s done this a thousand times before. Well,

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